


breezeblocks

by ope_ope_oppenheimer



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Child Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Geniuses, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Manipulative Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:27:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25283878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ope_ope_oppenheimer/pseuds/ope_ope_oppenheimer
Summary: Rick sees too much of himself in his youngest grandson. Not because he's narcissistic and he lives vicariously through his grandkids, but because Leslie resembles too much Sanchez on the Sanchez-Smith spectrum.
Relationships: Rick Sanchez & Morty Smith, Rick Sanchez (Rick and Morty) & Original Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	breezeblocks

**Author's Note:**

> beta'd by the lovely [stardustwhiskeyhoney](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustwhiskeyhoney/pseuds/stardustwhiskeyhoney) who's been so patient with me and loving my oc.
> 
> title taken from [alt J - breezeblocks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMOd6jz548Y)

Morty is more nervous than even Jerry. His leg bouncing as he twiddles his thumbs. Summer, acting nonchalant, is typing away on her phone, the keyboard sound still on despite their hospital setting.

Jerry is in the birthing room. Which, to be frank, baffles Rick. His casual incompetence might just make him drop the fucking baby onto the ground. _Splat._ And Rick can imagine all that freshly formed brain matter that could barely form a coherent thought scattered onto the ground. It’d be good, for the kid. Maybe.

But, late pregnancy or no, Beth decided to keep it.

Which is precisely what concerns Morty.

“R-Rick, it’s going to be fine, right? I-It’s happened before?” By before, he means alternate dimensions. Years of interdimensional travel and the kid still can’t figure out the difference between time and space.

He gives a non-committal shrug and a swig of his flask.

His grandkids stare at him.

“What?! I don’t— I don’t fucking know! This never happened before— as far as I knew, most versions of me had two grandkids. Maybe he gets disowned or something like that.” Which would be hard. It’s hard to disown anyone when Jerry’s incompetence makes everyone’s flaws disappear.

The kid might just die. Babies do that all the time. Fragile things. 

“You’ll save mom, right? If something happens?”

Summer is the one who asks. And at least someone have their priorities straight.

“I’m a scientist, not a gynaecologist, Summer. Usually if I was going to look at a pussy I’d be doing it to fuck it—“

“Gross.”

“But yeah. I’m not gonna let your mom die. It’s not the medieval ages. Women aren’t dying on birthing beds anymore.”

Just like that, a scream rips through the hospital. One that curdles his blood. And Rick jumps to his feet, portal gun in hand.

“Rick?!” Morty’s own panic, multiplied by Rick’s sudden movement, propels him to scream. 

“Sweetie?!” He calls out, just to make sure, and at another labour-intensive scream, his legs move fast and he kicks open the delivery door.

“Sir— you’re not allowed to—“

“Shut the fuck up!” He pushes the huddle of nurses aside only to find—

Beth is smiling, holding his third grandchild. All wrinkled and swollen like the rest of them fresh out of the womb. His shoulders slump in relief.

“Hey, Dad.” She said. “Meet Leslie.”

It was a stupid name like all names and it was an ugly baby like all babies, but Morty and Summer were immediately oohing and awwing, and Jerry looked so satisfied with himself.

Rick sits down on the ledge of the bed, feeling more tired than he ever has in his entire life. 

* * *

Weeks pass. And Leslie (or Les, as he’s affectionately called by his family) becomes the very centre of attention. He did what babies do— cry, shit, eat. It cried and shitted way more often whenever Jerry was around, but they had all just attributed it to Jerry being hopeless at taking care of a baby.

Les grows to resemble his mom. And by extent— Rick. He will probably inherit Rick’s male-pattern baldness in his pretty blond hair. He has his blue eyes too. Les resembles more of his grandfather than his mother.

And that would have been fine. A part of Rick was narcissistic enough to love a grandson that had at least some of him and his daughter’s qualities. The more his own genes won out, the better.

That was until Leslie spoke his first word.

Regular babies go through the process of blabbering, mimicking human speech patterns and training their mouths before they’re able to form coherent words and eventually sentences. The process takes about a year, depending on the child. It is mostly due to the limits of biological development— motor skills need to be developed, colour needs to be learned, sight and hearing coordinated.

They were at dinner, Jerry said something stupid again.

“Jerry, for the love of god, if you’re going to be blaming something for your unemployment, blame it on your own incompetence instead of immigration. Jesus. All these years, and your incompetence finally catches up to your white male privilege.”

The family is on his side this time. Jerry is stupid and embarrassing and often takes a lot more time to be educated on sociopolitical issues. Rick doesn’t have time to do that, and leaves that job to Morty or Beth. 

Leslie giggles, waving his stupid little chubby baby arms around. He’s started to giggle at six months, predictably. Though it’s not often that he does, and when he does, it’s usually to gain someone’s attention.

“White male privilege!”

Everything stops. He has it now.

“Oh no.”

“Oh my god. Baby Leslie’s first word is literally white male privilege. That’s so...”

“He’s not fucking woke, Summer. He’s just a baby. He just repeated words. He can’t—”

“I’m woke!” Leslie says, clapping his hands, and silencing everyone as if they’re about to listen to the Queen of fucking England. “I’m woke!”

That was nearly a complete sentence with proper grammatical syntax. Beth does the math of seven month old baby plus speaking words way too early, and it all comes together in her mind.

“Oh my god this is so cute!” Summer squealed. Because even though she is a nihilistic teenager, she’s not immune to baby charm. “Leslie, can you say—“

“Say papa! Say daddy!”

“Dad! He can nearly form complete sentences already—”

“This is totally going on my story.”

Leslie frowns, and amidst all the ruckus, he begins to sniffle and then cry. Rick understands. No smart child likes to be patronized, looked down on, or talked down to. It’s like asking a dog to do tricks.

Beth makes some excuse for him about how he’s tired, and brings him to his crib. Kid can’t even walk yet. Can barely crawl, yet had spoken his first word.

He finds Beth singing softly to him. It’s some old love song with better lyricism than Twinkle Twinkle, and that seems to calm the baby down.

He gets it. Smart brains need stimulation.

Beth looks at him, and she smiles with tears in her eyes.

“He’s like you, Dad.”

Rick shoved his hands into his pockets, walked into the room and looked down at his grandkid. The onesie covering the short and chubby frame with a light blue and white stars speckled on it. He reaches out, pronounces syllables clearly— no baby talk for him— “Grandpa!”

“Yeah.” He says, not acknowledging the kid. And he wraps an arm around her shoulder and brings her in close, keeping an eye on the crib. Leslie’s trying to kick his legs up in the air, writhing in his crib and impatient at his own body for still being so small. “Just like me.”

* * *

Beth screams when she catches him in the baby room, her baby boy hooked up to electrical nodes and devices. He might have stabbed a few needles in. (If the kid can get vaccinations he doesn’t see why he can’t take a few blood samples.) Jerry barges in, so does Morty and Summer. And all of a sudden more people are screaming and Leslie, who he had _managed_ to calm down just ten minutes ago, starts crying again.

He becomes the focus of the next family therapy session.

* * *

“Now Rick, would you like to explain why you were conducting...experiments? On your own grandchild?”

“Je-esus fucking Christ! I wasn’t trying to kill the kid! I-I just wanted to know what was goin’ on, you know, in that little noggin’ of his.” They confiscated his flask before coming here, and he wished he had its comforting weight in his own hand. Instead, he can feel the kid’s eyes on him. Blue eyes, like his. Rick really hopes that this kid isn’t going to join whatever version of Hitler Youth that might exist in the future.

“And this happened because...he spoke his first word?”

“First complete sentences. He said he’s woke, in present tense and first person, of course.” Beth smiles, holding her baby boy like a farmer with a prized sow. “He’s uh, kind of a genius. Isn’t that right, Leslie?”

“Intelligence can be hereditary.” Dr. Wong acknowledges, smiling at the kid. He waves back.

“Hereditary!”

“Can we not have this conversation while he’s in the fucking room? God, he clearly understands what’s going on. No one is creeped out by all this?”

“Y-Yeah, I agree with Grandpa Rick. The— The baby kind of creeps me out.”

“Thank you!”

“Oh come on, he’s just a baby. A really smart baby! Aren’t you?” Beth is grinning at her youngest son like he’s just won the fucking lottery. Which he kind of did. Getting a smart child out of Jerry’s gene pool has the same probability. Maybe that was why Leslie doesn’t exist, much, in other timelines.

Leslie waves his arms around, happy to be here. There’s people and sights and sounds and smells for his little brain to absorb. Of course he’s happy. Rick just hopes he hasn’t developed enough emotional intelligence yet to understand why this is so fucked.

“Grandpa Rick, you’re just jealous because there’s finally another smart person in the house.” Summer rolls her eyes, but she’s engaged in the conversation, at least. Family therapy is one of the times where Summer would put away her phone.

“What? No! No!” Rick stammers.

Silence.

“No!” Rick exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air. “I’m not jealous of a fucking baby. It’s a baby!”

“Rick, I understand that sometimes the appearance of a new family member can take away attentions and resources—”

“I’m not jealous!” His voice is more exasperated now. “I’m just saying, do none of you find this weird? Jerry, are you seriously saying that you believe _that_ to be your son?”

“What do you mean? Of course Leslie is my son!” Jerry blinked, and then looked to Leslie who resembled nothing on the Smith side of the Sanchez-Smith spectrum, before he looked to Beth in his infinite insecurity.

“He’s your son, Jerry.”

“Like shit he is. He’s probably just another alien parasite, trying to take over the family.”

“Parasite. That’s an interesting word.” Dr. Wong latches onto _that_ , of all things. “Rick, what prompts you to imagine this infant to be a threat to the integrity of your family unit?”

“Yeah, Rick, aren’t _you_ the alien parasite that tried to take over my family?”

“I’m just saying, Jerry, with the track record of Thing 1 and 2 over there,” he gestures to Morty and Summer, who at this point just shrugs off the verbal abuse, “none of you think it’s weird that Beth pops out a baby Einstein with you, of all people, as the fucking _sperm donor_?”

“Uh, excuse you. We—”

“Shut the fuck up, Jerry.” Beth stops him from embarrassing both of them, before she sighs. “Dad, we’re _happy_. Nothing is wrong, no one is trying to take over the universe, why can’t you just accept that?”

“Uh, Beth, sweetie, someone is _always_ trying to take over the universe.” Rick corrects, “and I’m just saying, it’s fucking suspicious that we have this baby that suddenly comes into our lives!”

“He’s a baby, Dad! What can he do?”

“He might be a baby _now_ , but give it a few years— Beth, you remember when you were a kid. Do you really want _that_ on your hands?”

He knows he’s said the wrong thing. For a moment, he prays that Dr. Wong will interject, but of course she doesn’t, because her job is to sprinkle catalysts in families and see them explode against each other and analyze the results or clean up the mess.

“Oh come on, you know that’s not what I mean—”

“Dad, no matter how Leslie turns out, he’s my son.” Beth says, “and I’m going to be there for him, and love him just as much as I do Morty and Summer. No matter what he becomes— Nobel-prize winning scientist, surgeon, lawyer, president—” Rick wants to throw in a barb about high expectations, but Beth barrels forward, “I’m going to support him. And he’s not going to turn out like either of us because I am going to love him and I am not going to abandon him like you did me!”

Rick looks at his daughter, wondering if she actually knows what she’s doing. He knows Beth is smart, but he knows parenting is hard. He’s sucked his ass at it his entire life. Morty and Summer turned out alright, but Leslie isn’t just some kid you can throw a laptop or a phone at. Leslie demands respect and attention and something to occupy him or else he will occupy himself.

“Oh jeez.” Morty says, holding his head. Probably trying to come to terms with another Rick in the house. Even if it’s teensy-bitsie-Rick.

“Yeah, welcome to the club, pal.”

* * *

Leslie isn’t a troublesome child. Children who know how to communicate their needs rarely are. He cries when he’s hungry or needs to be cleaned, and is generally a calm and quiet kid otherwise. If not a bit curious. He’s snuck into the garage two times before Rick gets Beth and Jerry a baby monitor that’s essentially an infant-sized anklet for house arrest.

Rick watches from the sidelines, making it clear that he’s keeping his distance. Sometimes their eyes would meet, but he always drinks from his flask to avoid the gaze.

He’s an absolute treasure with Beth, smiling and laughing and giggling whenever she teases him. She doesn’t have a lot of time to spend with the kid, due to her job, but they both enjoy every minute with each other. Morty and Summer love him as much as siblings with large age-gaps can with a surprise baby. They both babysit on occasion, and Rick is pretty sure Summer is using the kid for clout on TikTok.

One thing that he can appreciate though, is the kid fucking despises Jerry. Perhaps even more than Rick.

Jerry doesn’t understand his youngest son, and as usual, a part of Rick pities him. Leslie holds the same amount of contempt and disgust for his biological father as he would a cockroach. He cries whenever Jerry tries to pick him up, gets angry whenever Jerry touches Beth in a show of casual affection, and frankly just does not listen to him. Yet acting so sweet around Beth, it puts a strain on the Smiths’ marriage even more than Rick ever had.

And Morty, understanding Rick, also understands Leslie on some level. And of course, he asks Rick for help. Because as shit as his dad is, he’d much prefer having Jerry around than not.

To which, Rick responds with incredulousness and a firm “no.”

“I’m a scientist, Morty, not the— the baby whisperer!” Rick’s hands settle too harshly on his workbench, before he turns to the kid. “Why don’t you ask Jerry if he can be less lame? Maybe then he would be able to commandeer some kind of respect from the fucking toddler in his terrible two’s.”

Morty is unimpressed.

“Rick, I know you still think he’s some kind of antichrist—”

“Oh no, no fucking way. He’s my fucking messiah right now. The saviour of my fucking soul. Do you even see what he’s doing to your parents’ marriage? I thought I had done a good job—”

“But dad can’t go on like this! Can’t you, I don’t know— do _something_?”

“What the hell do you want me to do, Morty? Mind control a baby? Make your little brother disappear with a David Bowie magic trick?”

“No!” Morty sighs, “just, I don’t know, keep him busy? Or something?”

Rick pauses and gives the question some actual thought. Tormenting Jerry is the highest form of entertainment the kid can get right now, aside from reading, maybe he really does need a distraction. 

“Fine. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

“Alright, little man.” Rick sits himself down in front of the two-year old, who’s playing with...Legos. Far too early for his age, in his opinion, because he’s seen the kid sucking on his own toes. But the kid’s a prodigy, so what else does he expect? Most geniuses have their own weird hangups. His is alcoholism. Maybe Leslie’s will be a foot fetish.

He looks back at him, and smiles. “Grandpa Rick!”

“Shut the fuck up. Don’t kiss my ass.” He says, and the pretty blond eyebrows frown in confusion. The kid would have been cute, a little cherubim if he’d been normal. But all of Rick’s instincts are screaming at him that this is dangerous and no good and that he should really just put the kid down humanely. The Smiths barely missed the family dog. What’s a missing baby to them?

He gestures to the lego set.

“What you building? The newest guillotine?”

“A pirate ship. What’s a guillotine?”

”Something that cuts people’s heads off.” Great, the kid already has a propensity for pillaging and murdering. He inspects the little model closely. The kid’s not bad. The design’s flashier than he prefers— Rick’s aesthetic usually rests somewhere between ‘heap of trash’ and ‘good enough.’ But Leslie is actually using silver blocks with red and blue decorations.

There are wings and no sails.

“They space pirates or something?” He asks, and the kid nods. Fuck this kid. 

“You having fun?”

Leslie pauses, looking at him in a way that sends chills down his spine. Most children at this age have a vacant, happy expression. Morty was a perfectly alright kid. Stupid as all hell, barely self-aware or sentient, and barely even knows about object permanence. But Leslie’s already spoken his first sentences and...knows who he is, where he is, and almost...why he is here.

“Is this about dad?”

“Wow, you still call him your dad?” Rick laughs, before he runs a hand over his grey hair. “Yeah. Uh, you gotta stop picking on him.”

Silence.

“Look, it’s fine when I do it, cause we hate each other. But he loves you, and you’re his son, a toddler no less, and...”

“And it makes their relationship bad.” Leslie finishes for him.

Rick feels like an absolute hypocrite, and he hates how this kid is way, _way_ too smart for his own age. Was he like this? Such a pain in the ass when he was a baby? Christ, what if the kid grows up? He thinks his mantle as the smartest man in the universe might be challenged. And, if he goes through a rebellious phase, or worse, a _take over the world phase_ , which, everyone with half a brain and a raisin’s shred of ambition has—

“Look, I’ll make you a deal.” Rick offers, taking out the little steel sphere. It’s a puzzle Archimedes would cream his pants over. Simple enough for a kid like Leslie to burn a week or two on. “Stop picking on Jerry, and I’ll give you this to entertain yourself.”

The kid takes the ball that’s a little bit too large for his small hands, and he pushes and pulls at the shifting rings that lock into each other. He’s baby-proofed the thing, and made it ergonomic enough for a child with developing motor skills to be able to manipulate easily.

“Something inside?”

Rick shrugs.

“Does it matter?”

Leslie shakes his head. It would be a bonus, for sure, but it’s about the journey and not the destination.

“And if you finish it, I’ll give you another one. As long as you lay it easy on Jerry.”

He nods.

Rick extends a hand, and the baby looks at it in confusion, not quite understanding a lot of social habits and norms. Despite his quick learning, Beth has adopted a strict no media no technology policy around Leslie (and in the house) in fear of bad influences. Rick knows it won’t last long. They all need their fix of reality TV shows.

“It’s a handshake.” Rick says, “it means that the promise is official and you have to keep it.”

“Promise?”

“When you tell someone you will do something, you have to do it. That’s a promise.”

“Or else what?”

This motherfucker. He’s already thinking of ways to weasel out of the deal. Rick can’t say that he’s any better, but this is why he hates this baby. Too sly.

“I won’t bring you any more.”

“Okay.” Leslie extends his hand outward, holding Rick’s for a moment. Rick gives it a customary shake, before letting go.

* * *

Morty gets along better with Leslie than Summer does. Perhaps it’s because Leslie knows Morty isn’t exploiting him for likes on social media, but they make a good pair. Morty is the only one who would fly Leslie around, and the baby...Enjoys being a baby.

Rick understands. Morty’s idiocy is the contagious kind. One that makes you forget about the harsh realities of the world. And it’s harmless enough, so he doesn’t tell Morty to stay away from his little brother. Together, they watch Summer go off to college, somewhere as far as she could.

“Good luck, Sum-sum. Don’t party too hard.” Rick says, just to avoid tearing up. Because this is his first grandchild. And though she was an accident, she was always...wanted. In some way. No one asked to be born, and least of all, her.

“Bye, Grandpa Rick.” She grins, hugging him, and she leans down to kiss the baby on the cheek. “Bye Les.”

“Bye bye.” Les waves, he’s not smiling. He isn’t a happy kid.

“See you next summer, Summer.” Morty grins, thinking he’s clever for being the first person to make that joke. His sister rolls her eyes.

“I’m not missing Christmas and Thanksgiving. See ya, Morty.”

And then she’s getting into the car along with Jerry and Beth.

Leslie leans against Morty, and the three of them watch the car drive away.

“Morty.” Leslie says, grabbing both of their attention. Even if Rick pretends to ignore it by taking a sip from his flask.

“Yeah, Les?”

“Never leave me.” Les says, hugging him in a way that Rick didn’t think the kid could or would. He says the words that have been hovering inside Rick’s mind for years, and he hates him for it.

Morty laughs, and he says, “Never.”

“Promise?” A hand is held out.

Morty shakes it.

Rick wonders if anyone would notice if he murders the kid and makes a robot clone.

* * *

If fatherhood was a competition, Jerry would be a close last place just after Rick. He stays, he loves, he cares— obviously— but he will forever be a burden upon his children. Rick, at least, gets out of the damn way before he can do more harm than good. Morty and Summer knows this, feels this, but they tolerate it because where else could they go? They were Smiths. They didn’t have options.

Leslie’s attitude towards Jerry becomes one more of tolerance than blatant antagonism, and Jerry thinks it’s all his own doing. That he’s finally gotten through to the kid. He loves his youngest son, of course, but doesn’t know how to love him. The toy trains and books that Jerry purchases for Leslie during his grocery runs is tossed aside, becoming an island of trash in the kid’s closet. Jerry forces Leslie to spend time with him, giving into the human instinct of teaching. He reads Dr. Seuss books to his son, and at least it bores Leslie enough to sleep.

For a few years, at least, Rick thinks everything would be fine. So what if there’s a prodigy in the house? His system worked. Leslie loves the puzzles, and the little prizes that came along with them every time he solved them. The first was an enclosed star, the second a mini-biome of the amazon rainforest, the third a supernova trapped in stillness. The kid had an appreciation for beauty and infinite curiosity. 

He treasured Rick’s puzzles and gifts, and soon Rick finds himself the subject of smiles and adoration much to his unease. The more Rick leaves Leslie to his own devices and tosses him a bone of a toy once in a while, the more he loves his grandpa. It’s a fucked relationship, which is why Rick reluctantly accepts that Jerry’s suffocating love might be good for the kid.

That is, until Jerry fucks with the kid’s stuff.

“What’s this?” Jerry asks, because they’ve agreed to keep this secret from Jerry. The man’s got issues along with sci-fi paranoia. So when he sees the little transparent spheres that are Leslie's trophies, he freaks.

“Rick, what the hell? I thought we agreed, no sci-fi stuff around my son!”

Leslie’s eyes are wide as saucers as he watches Jerry wave around the fragile biome. Rick had instructed him that there was real mini-life inside, that it had to be handled carefully. And just when someone in this house finally listens to him, another person has to come along and fuck it up.

“Jesus fuck, Jerry, calm down. It’s a toy. It’s like, you know, a snow-globe.”

Leslie hasn’t developed the emotional intelligence to properly articulate his anxiety, and he bursts out crying, trying to tug at Jerry’s pants to make him stop.

“It’s not just a snow-globe—”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Jerry, have you never seen a rainforest before?”

They scream at each other. No one else is home. Summer and Morty has school, and Beth has a job. So when things get a little more heated, and Jerry’s hand slips, the kid screams.

The thing breaks, shattering across the garage floor. Exposed to the air, life dies immediately. The plants wilt, the waters evaporate, and the animals begin to decompose alive before them, skin melting off of bone.

What happens next is a ruckus, Rick watches real loss in a child’s eyes, and then he’s running out of the open garage door into the suburbs. Jerry chases after him, but of course, he loses him.

“Father of the year.” Rick rolls his eyes, before he goes back to his workbench. He lets Jerry panic, scream, panic some more, think about what Beth would do to him, think about what Morty and Summer would do to him, think about what’s going to happen to the baby. Jerry asks about the tracking device. There’s no tracking device yet because Rick didn’t think that the kid would be allowed out of anyone’s line of sight until he’s at least six years old.

Jerry runs out to look for his son.

He has a grand time watching Jerry hide the fact that Leslie ran away from the rest of the family when they come home. He’s sleeping, or he doesn’t want anyone to bother him. Which, to be fair, he doesn’t. No one bats an eye because Leslie’s been _so good_ for Jerry recently. There’s no reason at all why he’d lie about the disappearance of his son, other than his crippling cowardice and incompetence.

It’s half an hour to dinner time when Rick gets out of the garage, opens the door to the baby room when no one’s looking, and uncovers the pile of totally not-suspicious blankets.

As expected, the kid’s built himself a fort, and he looks up at Rick with teary eyes. The enclosed star provided a nightlight, and he’s holding the supernova close to him the way other children would hold a teddy bear or a blankie.

“Hey.” Rick sits down, cross-legged before him. He’s certain the kid’s already planning to kill Jerry. He himself has been planning to kill Jerry for as long as the leech has been married to his daughter. But, given his grandkids need a dad, and Jerry’s a piece of shit but never _that bad_ , he’s procrastinated on the idea. “Wanna come down to dinner?”

Leslie stares at him with the same _how can you say that_ expression that Morty gives him all the time. He rolls his eyes.

“Look, I get it, your dad’s an asshole. But it was an accident. Here.” He offers the olive branch. It’s another biome, but of a desert this time. He figured the kid was getting bored of the trees. Leslie’s eyes widen as he reaches forward to take it into his hand, but Rick pulls away at the last second.

“Promise me you’ll never run away again.” He says, and Leslie’s blue eyes look identical to his own. “When things get hard, you never fucking run, unless your life is in danger. Never, ever run from your family, or the people who love you. You stay here, and you deal with the problem.”

“Never?” Leslie asks, “even when it hurts?”

“You know, when you get a cut, you don’t just leave it.” Rick explains, “you put a band-aid on it. Medicine. But if you run, it’s never going to get healed. So promise. Never, ever run away from home.”

The kid looks at him, nods, reaches out a hand.

They shake, and Leslie is about to let go, before Rick adds.

“But if you need space for a few days…” He guides the kid’s hand to the wall, and hovers the hand over the seemingly empty space beside the electrical socket. The motion sensors activate, and a keypad flips open. “Code is 1220. It kicks you out after twelve hours though, so just use it to like, get some sleep or some quiet time or something.”

The kid looks at him with such wide-eyed gratitude and blatant worship that he remembers how nice it is to be a parent. For a moment, he can almost forgive the kid for being a vindictive smartass before he stands up, brushing off the imaginary lint on his lab coat.

“I’ll see you at dinner.”

* * *

Morty finds some college close by and commutes. 

* * *

“What are you thinking about for college?” Beth asks, one day at dinner. Rick thumps the hilt of his knife on the table.

“Jesus Christ, Beth, he’s nine years old!”

“Yeah, Beth. Maybe it’s a little too early, you know, to think about that sort of stuff.”

“Well, now is the time to think about what the world could be like. I knew I was going to be a surgeon when I was a very young age.” Beth smiles at her youngest. “Maybe Harvard or MIT? You know, if you get your SATs done early…”

Rick looks over to the kid who looks between miserable and emotionless, he can never tell. His bet hinges on the emotionless side. The special treatment the kid gets, being put on a pedestal by his mother...It’s difficult, not to let that get into your head.

“I don’t want to go to college.” He says, and it’s the worst thing he could have said in that situation.

“What?” Beth realizes from the flinch of everyone around the table, that she screeched too loudly. She lowers her voice immediately, but the hand holding her wine glass is trembling a little. “Baby, what’s wrong with college? Is it a girl? A guy? Did you—”

“No, mom. Disgusting.” His face twists into one of contempt for the general population and the idea of romance, before he elaborates. “Didn’t Morty start adventures with Grandpa Rick when he was thirteen?"

All eyes turn on him. And Rick raises his hands in surrender.

“Don’t look at me! I didn’t do shit!”

Morty, who has been silent and lanky beside his baby brother, clears his throat a little. And of course, he’d do anything to discourage anyone from hanging out with Rick. “Uh, you know, Les, they’re not really adventures. More like...Chores, or errands.”

“Yeah, but you get to see the galaxy right? Supernovas, other civilizations—”

“It’s, uh, really not all as it’s hyped up to be.” Rick tries to dissuade him as well. The last thing he wants to do is to babysit his least favourite grandkid in space. “And I take Morty for a reason, you know? Sure, I take your mom, your dad, and your sister sometimes. But it’s Rick and Morty, not Rick and the Smiths. That just sounds like a shitty sitcom.”

“And, if you stay, you can help people, baby.” Beth adds, “and you could meet your professors, other people who are just as smart as you—”

“Grandpa Rick is the smartest man in the universe, and I’ve already met him.”

Rick has to admit, the kid knows how to kiss ass.

“But what about helping people? If you become a doctor or a scientist—”

“I don’t care about other people, mom.”

Rick stares at his grandkid, who just earned himself another point in the game of “reasons to kill my psychopath grandson.” Not caring about other people? Jesus. Neither he nor Beth had such a cynical idea of the world at the age of nine, let alone vocalized it aloud at dinnertime. Everyone else’s eyes are wide.

The kid, at least, knows shame. And he looks away.

“I just don’t want to stay on Earth.”

“And what’s wrong with staying on Earth?” Jerry pipes up. He’s looking at his youngest son with an expectancy that comes from blatant antagonism. Though Jerry’s relationship with Leslie has improved, there’s still a distance between them. And Rick thinks, resentment. Leslie’s never forgiven Jerry for being...Jerry.

“It’s boring. There’s just more to—”

“Oh please, you haven’t even travelled outside of America.” Jerry points out, unkindly. “Look, son, you can shoot for the stars all you like but Earth is a perfectly fine planet with lots of opportunities for you!”

“I just think—”

“You just think you’re better than the rest of us, is that it?” Jerry cuts him off. “Just because you’re smarter than all of us, you have a right to abandon your family?”

“Jesus. Dad!” Morty exclaims, and his worried eyes catch Rick’s. Rick doesn’t say anything. Because he’s not in the place to.

“I’m not saying I’m better than you. I’m saying I need to leave, I can’t stay here—”

“And why can’t you?” Jerry challenges, “isn’t your life good here? You have a loving family, a bright future ahead of you— and you want to throw it all away for what? Adventure? Be responsible, Leslie, think of all the good that you can do. You owe us at least that much.”

“I don’t owe you anything.” Leslie says. But he sounds like he doesn’t believe it. “I don’t need to stay here because of you.”

“Fine. Then leave. Be like Rick.” Jerry huffs, “run off to the galaxy for all I care. But don’t expect us all to be waiting for you when you come back.”

Leslie stares at his plate of barely touched food. Sympathetic, Morty reaches out a hand to pat at his shoulder, about to say something to refute his idiot of a dad, before Leslie stands.

“Excuse me.”

Morty watches him leave before standing to follow.

“I, uh, I’m gonna go talk to him.”

Footsteps thump on the staircase, and then the door to Leslie’s room slams shut.

“Real, uh, A-plus parenting there, Jerry.” Rick says, “definitely not going to give him any daddy issues. Like, at all.”

“Shut up, Dad. Like you’re one to talk.” Beth glares at him, the wine glass in her hand incredibly still. She’s been silent the entire time, and Rick doesn’t think it’s a good look on her.

“What, you— you agree with him?” Rick didn’t think his daughter would be stupid enough to agree with Jerry on _anything_ , other than their marriage and raising kids together. Especially not on this subject. She sighs, holding her head in her hands.

“I-I...I don’t know.”

“Beth!” Jerry exclaims. Because of course he expects her to be on his side.

She stands and leaves with a, “I’m going to get more wine.”

* * *

Rick runs into Morty in the hallway, closing the door behind him. A grim line is set on his face, his jaw clenched, his brows knitted. He’s holding onto his elbow, folding in on himself as if he’s just been hurt. Which, he might be. Morty’s empathetic. Another’s pain is his pain.

“Not— Not like I give a shit.” Rick starts, “but how’s he? Did he, uh, say anything? Maybe vaguely homicidal or sociopathic?”

“Uh, no, he didn’t.” Morty says, not meeting his eyes. “He, uh, didn’t say anything.”

“Weird and creepy, but okay.” But that basic level of concern exempts him from caring anymore. So Rick turns to leave.

“Rick?”

Oh no. He’s going to ask him for something. And he can’t say no.

“What.” He turns back around this time, looking at Morty’s grim expression, crossing his arms to make it a harder sell. When Morty takes a bit too long to speak, he taps his foot on the floor impatiently.

“Can he come with us, on one of our adventures?”

Rick throws up his hands.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Morty.”

“I’m just saying! And if he sees it’s actually not that big of a deal—”

“Morty, the galaxy isn’t like New York city or the fucking Yellowstone National Park! You can’t just come back from it like it’s a fucking seventh grade field trip!” He exclaims, putting a hand to his face.

“Then why do you keep on bringing me out there?”

“Because you don’t _like_ it.” Morty’s mouth falls open. “Look, it’s like...It’s like an addiction, alright? Space is a hooker that you’ve fallen in love with. There’s always a reward and you always want to risk your life for it. When you’re like me, or your mom, you _know_ what those rewards mean and you...You get into the game, and you…”

“I’m too stupid to get into the game.” Morty finishes for him, plainly. “You know, just because you’re smart, doesn’t mean you have to be an asshole. Leslie isn’t.”

“And look where that got him.”

Morty doesn’t say anything, and Rick sighs, closing his eyes. He runs a few hypotheticals, and really, even if he _didn’t_ bring Leslie, Leslie would find a way to sneak out anyways. Worst case scenario, he comes back and tells Beth his baby boy is dead. Which he will prevent by building a robot clone. Given how smart the A.I. has to be though, it’ll probably go Blade Runner. That’s another problem he’ll have to deal with, later.

“Alright, fine.” Rick gives in, because he always gives in. “But if anything happens to him, it’s on you. We only go where I say it’s alright for us to go. And Jerry can’t know.”

“H-How are we gonna keep it from Dad?” Morty stammers, and Rick rolls his eyes.

“Not my problem. Figure it out.”

* * *

The kid doesn’t say thank you. But he stares out at the window the entire time, his sky blue eyes taking in all of the stars. They drive past the remnants of a war zone, and Leslie fixates on the ruckage. Rick knows he’s trying to take in everything, sear all of it into his brain for reference and analysis later.

Morty sees a dead body start to float by, and he covers the kid’s eyes. This is precisely the reason why he didn’t take shotgun.

“I want to see!” Leslie struggles and wrestles with his brother in the back seat, but Morty is stronger and bigger and far more experienced. Rick’s seen him fight off robot spiders before, and they have way more legs than Leslie does.

“No you don’t! You’re eleven years old!” Morty says, keeping his hands held tight over the boy’s face, careful with the teeth. He wrestles them both so Leslie is looking at his face, at his stern expression. “No dead bodies! No shooting a gun! No killing!”

“You know, Morty, the galaxy isn’t exactly rated E for Everyone.” Rick rolls his eyes. “This isn’t Disney.”

“Shut up, Rick!” Morty barely casts him a glance, before he starts to really preach at his little brother. “Look, we’re only here for ice cream, alright? We’re not on an adventure, and you don’t have to kill anyone. Not everyone in the galaxy will try to kill you.”

“Most will. Morty, remember the first Gromflomite you killed? You were what, fourteen?”

“You told me they were robots!”

“Gromflomite?”

“Bug people working for the Galactic Federation.” Rick shrugs, before glancing back at Leslie. “Point is, space isn’t all fun and games. It’s not like, a hobby of ours, alright? We’re here cause we have to be.”

“Okay.” The kid finally relents, and he puts his own hands over his eyes, before turning over to the window. “Tell me when it’s okay to look.”

“Morty, you might want to put a bag over his head.”

“Leslie! No peeking!”

* * *

They run into some trouble on their second ice cream outing. It’s a shootout, and Rick is too preoccupied with keeping himself and Morty alive to pay much attention to his youngest grandkid. And Morty, being his father’s son, of course, screams at him not even fifteen minutes in.

“Rick?! Where’s Leslie?”

“I thought you had him! Jesus!” He ducks out of the way of a laser, and he could see panic settle into every single fibre of Morty’s muscles.

“Leslie!” He stands up from behind their cover, exposing them, and Rick scrambles to tug him down.

“Jesus Christ, Morty!”

He ducks just in time as a wind goes over their head, a flash of dark, a telltale sign of something suddenly being sucked out of existence and disappearing, and everything is quiet for a brief second. Morty immediately gets up, running around, looking for survivors. “Leslie?! Leslie!”

“H-Help me…” Morty steps on a bug’s leg, and he shoots the dying man without even looking, too preoccupied with looking for his brother.

“Leslie?!”

“Over here.”

His face, slightly chubby with remnants of baby fat, is covered in a little bit of soot and blue blood, and Morty runs towards him, not caring if it’s a trap or not. He embraces his little brother in his arms.

“Oh God. You had me so worried.” He picks him up. “Where the hell were you?”

“Hiding.” Leslie rolls his eyes. “You wouldn’t expect me to reveal my location during a shoot out, would you?”

Morty laughs, the earlier panic completely forgotten. “No, not at all.”

Rick, however, is much more preoccupied with the small crater they’re standing on the edge of, like something had just taken a bite out of the planet itself and left nothing but a few spare rocks. Perfectly round too. And Rick knows he kept a gravity well grenade somewhere in his car.

He looks at Leslie, still within Morty’s arms.

“Are you alright? Were you scared?”

“No. Not at all.”

Leslie’s smile is too bright for what remains of Rick’s conscience.

* * *

It’s the middle of summer, and everyone is home when Rick comes back from one of his solo adventures. Leslie’s always been homeschooled (which Rick knows has never done the kid any socialization favours) and Summer is back from her college. It’s an hour before dinnertime, and Rick held a faint excitement for whatever Beth was going to make when he hears shouting as soon as he opens the door.

“Even if I did— I’m tired of being disrespected in my own house, Beth!”

It’s Jerry and Beth, of course, their marriage forever teetering on the side of dysfunctional. He thinks he can ignore it as he goes and heads into the garage, when he stops before Leslie’s room.

Summer is sitting inside, and Morty is holding Leslie in his bed. The kid’s wide blue eyes looked wider, and a black eye is already forming on the left one.

He focuses his ears on the faint argument happening in the master bedroom, puts the pieces together, and looks to Summer, expecting an explanation.

She sighs, gets up, and closes the door behind her to speak to him.

“Hey look, the cavalry’s here.”

“What the hell is going on? Did Jerry shove him and he hit his head on the corner of a table, or something?” Because Jerry’s a spineless waste of oxygen, sure, but he’s never been too violent. He can hold his own in a fight against aliens, but he never had the propensity to…

“No, dad hit him.” Summer says, crossing her arms. “It’s...It’s been going on for a while. When none of us were home. And you were in the garage.”

“Oh come on, that’s bullshit. This is Gone Girl and Jerry’s ugly Ben Affleck. Jerry would never—” He really doesn’t want to victim blame, but he has to admit, he trusts his own grandson less than his son in law. Jerry’s weapon is not his fists, it’s his torment. 

“He’s eleven, Rick! What do you think he’s doing? Journaling and faking pregnancies?” Summer’s glare quiets him, because he knows he’s being shitty, and he looks away. She shakes her head in his peripheral vision. “Morty’s the one who discovered the bruises. Apparently whenever Leslie ignored him…”

“Jerry did something that would gain his attention.” Rick finishes for her, still trying to wrap his head around it all. He should have killed Jerry a long time ago. Why is Beth still arguing with Jerry? The man abused his own son. For being smarter than him. That’s plain as day.

“Right, whatever, I’ll be in the garage.” Rick escapes the awkward pause and lilt in the conversation before Summer can demand something from him, reaching into his chest pocket for his flask. A part of his brain still told him something was wrong, it doesn’t _sound_ like Jerry. But there he was, screaming at Beth, copping to it. 

Jerry comes to him in the garage, because he thinks he can get Rick to pity him enough to convince Beth to let him stay.

“Rick, I know we haven’t always been on the best of terms.”

“Understatement of the century.” Rick says, not looking back at Jerry. But he knows the man long enough to know that he’s slouched, a hand folded across his elbow like Morty always does. It’s learned behaviour. And Rick despises everything his grandchildren has learned from Jerry. Good riddance, he thinks.

“But I...I didn’t do it!” Jerry says, in the worst imitation of Ben Affleck since Casey Affleck. “I’ve never hit him! Y-You know I’m not like that, you’ve got to believe me! Beth will listen to you! She will!”

Rick finally turns to look at Jerry.

“What, you think your own son framed you?”

“He hates me, Rick.” Jerry, as always, looks pathetic, “all that I do, I do for him, and he hates me.”

“Jerry, have you ever considered—” Rick sighs, putting a hand to his face. He can’t believe he’s still talking to this douchebag. “That you’re _not_ the victim here? That maybe the eleven year old isn’t the problem?”

“Wh-What do you mean?” Jerry blinks back. “I-I didn’t do it! This is just— all a misunderstanding!”

“The greatest misunderstanding and the most unfortunate thing to ever happen to that kid in his entire life, second to being _my_ grandson, is that he’s got you as a dad.” Rick says. “That the universe, in its infinite sense of fucking humour, asked itself, ‘hey, how _more_ fucked up can we make this baby’, and decided to give a genius a leech for a fucking father. A father who would sap away his resources and dreams just by sheer existence, by sheer proximity to its host. And best of all, you do it to everyone. You did it to Beth, you did it to Morty and Summer. And you’re so afraid of disappearing from your genius kid’s life, from being tossed away like the piece of trash you are, that you did it to Leslie. Constantly.”

“B-But we both know Leslie— he’s not a normal kid! I’m just trying to teach him—”

“Compassion? Patience?” Rick exclaims. “Fine, I admit my grandson may have genocidal tendencies. But any compassion or patience that he has has been worn away by _you._ You constantly moralize at him, guilting him for his very own existence, for his intelligence and his ambition. You suffocate him with your sheer incompetence, dull his brain by opening your mouth. I don’t give a shit about you because you aren’t shit— I see you as exactly what you are. But Leslie doesn’t. He fucking looked _up_ to you and you disappointed him at every goddamn turn. You patronize him, treat him like a dog that knows how to do tricks, and force him to have a relationship with you on your own terms. And that’s not how parenting fucking works, Jerry!”

“Oh, like you know how to—”

“No I don’t!” Rick screams, his spittle flying, “I don’t know how to fucking parent, and I don’t _pretend_ to know. I, at least, fucked off for years to not do any more damage. And that’s the minimum of what you can do if you’re a shitty parent. Fuck off. Go away and let your kids live. Get as far away from my daughter and grandchildren as possible so that they won’t have to deal with your vapid bullshit and clean up after you, so that they don’t have to deal with an additional burden, and that when you grow senile, they don’t have to debate whether they should send you to a nicer nursing home or just pull the fucking plug.”

“I-I didn’t do it, though.” There are tears welling up in Jerry’s eyes. “I would never—”

“For fuck’s sake.” Rick sighs. “I don’t care. I don’t care if he Gone Girl’d you. I’m not the cops. That’s not my fucking job. And even if you didn’t do it, haven’t you done enough, already? Just stay away from my fucking family, and if you ever touch any of my grandchildren again, I’ll end your fucking misery.”

Jerry sniffles, hiccups, cries. Rick thinks he can see the guilt, the constant weight that the man carries with him, knowing that he is a burden because everyone in the world has told him that before. Finally accepting that he is abandoned. Finally leaving Rick’s life forever.

The little shit did one thing right, at least. 

* * *

When the divorce papers are finalized, Beth changes her last name. There’s no going back, this time. And if there’s anything that Rick can respect about his daughter— loves her for it— is that she’s a good mom. She certainly did not get that from him.

And being subject to a separation— he knows how she feels. There’s an intrinsic fear of dying alone that surfaces when the wedding ring comes off. It swallows you, makes you weak, makes you want to run far away from the kids because what’s the difference in leaving them too if you already left your husband?

But it’s different this time. Beth is stronger, surer of herself. She looks at Leslie as if he is her rock, the one thing left she has to protect. Every time that she speaks to him, calls him _baby_ , reminds him about something mundane; Rick knows that she is reminding herself of the reason she is here.

It doesn’t come as a surprise why her kids choose her every time. And he regrets not choosing her when he was younger.

“Mom, can I take grandpa’s last name too?”

He pauses, looks up at Leslie. The only Smith child to ever suggest it. And the domino effect unfolds before his eyes.

Beth looks heartbroken. He knows she’s sorry to have ever subjected Leslie to his imbecile of a Father. So she says, “of course, baby. Whatever you like. Dad?”

“Yeah sure. Just don’t go around the galaxy broadcasting it. Might get you into trouble.” Rick says. A name doesn’t mean that much to him.

Summer is on the fence, before she looks to her mom.

“Can I change my last name too? I mean, it’s less common than Smith.” Less forgettable, she means. Less mundane. Summer wants to be more, and now she can be.

Beth agrees easily. And all eyes turn to Morty. 

“Uh, I-I’m fine.” Morty says. “With my last name. Really, I’ve had it for so long it just seems...weird, you know. To change it.”

“Morty, if this is about your dad—“

“It’s not about him.” Morty cuts his mom off, and he looks away because he’s always a little afraid of being too rude. Too confrontational. “I just. Want to keep my last name.”

No one says anything at that, and Rick…

Rick does not know what to think. Even when he’s as far gone from his life as possible, Jerry still finds a way for someone in the family to choose him over Rick. With Morty no less.

Leslie smiles at him, like he’s proven a point. As if he’s expected this, all of this, that this was all according to his plan.

Rick begins to really wonder if the kid has a plan at all.

* * *

“Grandpa Rick, have you ever wanted to take over the galaxy?” They’re on the fringes of a black hole, and Leslie watches, fascinated as it swallows light and crushes matter to nothingness. In the low light and the faint reflection of the glass, Rick thinks those pupils in turn mirror the void before them.

“N-No? Jesus, what am I, an idiot?” Rick rolls his eyes, trying not to think of all the implications the question has. “Only three kinds of people want to take over the galaxy, kid. Powerhungry warlords, space fascists, and plain egomaniacs. I take pride in not being either. Knowledge is its own reward. Focus on science.”

“You’re not that far from an egomaniac.” Leslie’s smile is almost cheshire, the white teeth gleaming at him as he looks back, then looks forward again. “I don’t know. Don’t you think you have a duty to?”

“A duty to what? Be stupid?”

“A noblesse oblige.”

Oh god. Is he going to be a fascist? He hasn’t been on any weird online message boards lately, has he? The kid, with Beth’s looks and his genius, is basically Hitler’s wet dream.

“Just because I’m the smartest man in the universe doesn’t mean it’s mine.” Rick takes a swig from his flask. “Why do you think I left Earth? Never patented any of my shit? It’s cause people are responsible for their own futures. No one gets a say in that.”

Silence. 

Worrying silence.

“Even if you think you can come up with a better future for them?”

“Y-Your dad thought he came up with a better future for you.”

Leslie seems to ponder that for a moment, quiet.

“Did you never want to take over the universe for your fear of failure or your fear of commitment?”

“Oh, it’s like that, huh?” Rick scoffs. He knew it. He goddamn knew it.

They’re facing each other now.

“Why don’t you tell me what you fucking want then, tiny Hannibal Lecter? What can the smartest man in the universe do for my least favourite and most psychopathic grandson? Build you a fucking universe-ending nuke? Accelerate the heat death of the universe? Or do you want my famous fucking portal fluid formula?”

Leslie’s blue eyes are oddly tranquil, like the glaring colour of air on a summer’s day. He doesn’t ask. Because he’s never needed to.

Rick scowls. Leslie never needed anything. No gadgets, no homework help with chemistry, no shitty love potions that make some girl he’s crushing on fall in love with him. The kid has the confidence that comes with youth and inexperience— there’s a world of possibilities before him, and he has never met his limit. He doesn’t need anything from Rick. At least, not yet.

“Don’t you ever get tired?” He asks instead. “Of running?”

Rick blinks, almost flinches, and the kid takes it as a signal to elaborate.

“You could have done…Everything. I guess I’m just wondering why you never did. You know. For mom. For Morty.” He doesn’t include himself in the equation, because he knows Rick doesn’t give a shit about him. “It’s like you’re afraid of something.”

“I-I-I’m not fucking running.” Rick’s stammer doesn’t help his case. He can’t help if sometimes his brain moves faster than this mouth, and he struggles to get the words out. “I do whatever the fuck I want, whenever the hell I want. Just because I can, Leslie, doesn’t mean I fucking have to. Look, I know you’re young and you have the complex comprehension of good and evil as most children’s fairytales do. But you can’t save everyone in the entire fucking multiverse. You— I— don’t owe people shit. We don’t need to. We can just do whatever the hell we want cause that’s what other people do. And I am not—“

“Not responsible. For anything.” Leslie finishes for him.

Rick stares at him. This familiar stranger in his home, in his car. This thing that has wormed itself into his life and dug its claws so deep that he cannot tear it out without hurting himself. He has the same blue eyes. It’s a rear view mirror of hindsight— if he only drowned him in the fucking tub—

“You gonna take over the universe?”

His thumb hovers over the emergency eject button that would propel the passenger seat to the empty vacuum of space, and his right hand is by his thigh where he has a pistol strapped to it, in case that doesn’t work. He has to shoot first. He has to. It might be his own grandkid but this kid can and will kill him if given the chance. They’re both heartless enough.

“I don’t know yet. I might.” Leslie says. He’s telling the truth. “Are you gonna stop me?”

He’s not foolish enough to answer that question. 

“Just promise me you’ll go to college first.” He puts both hands on the wheel, and starts the car.

Leslie grins.

“I love you, Grandpa Rick.”

He wants to throw up. 

“Don’t ever say those fucking words to me ever again.”

“Thank you for not killing me.”

“Don’t make me fucking regret it.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading, i hope you enjoyed this! i know oc's have a bad rep, but i think this was a fun exploration of rick's character. you really can really taste the self-hatred when it's right in front of you.
> 
> find me screaming into the void on twitter @EliUndertrance


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